HCL trainee dies as bus crushes auto in Noida
NOIDA: A 22-year-old software engineer on her way to work at HCL with a colleague was killed in an accident near Mahamaya flyover in Noida on Thursday morning when a bus carrying school children hurtled into their auto from behind and smashed it against another school bus in front that had braked to a halt suddenly.
The auto was crushed to pulp, killing Pragya Singh, who had recently come to Noida from Patna for her first job, and driver Vinod Kumar on the spot. Her colleague Navita Verma survived but has head injuries and multiple fractures and is critical.
The two would normally be picked up by an office cab but had been taking an auto for the past few days. An HCL spokesperson said, “They themselves cancelled the cab facility the company provided. We did not discontinue the service from our side.”
The accident orphaned Vinod’s two children, Pushpinder (4) and Pankaj (5), who had lost their mother two years ago.
The impact was so strong that it threw some children of Marigold Public School seated in the bus in front off their seats. One of them, six-yearold Shivam, suffered a fracture in his left leg. Ashish (6) and Krishna (7) received minor injuries.
Manoj Kumar, the driver of the chartered bus that rammed the auto, abandoned the vehicle and fled. The agency that employs Manoj Kumar, who was driving the bus involved in the accident, said it had sacked Kumar and was helping the police locate him. There were around 40 students of Amity International School in the chartered bus and 30 students in the Marigold school bus.
The accident highlighted the institutional failure in enforcing road discipline in NCR as well as the mindset problem that leads to many accidents triggered by rash driving. This year, till April, Delhi has witnessed 2,537 accidents resulting in 445 deaths and 1,920 people have been booked for rash driving. In Noida, 130 people have died in accidents this year.
Pragya, the eldest of three siblings with a brother and sister, had come to Noida to work with HCL. She and Navita, who is from Allahabad, shared a flat in Sector 51.
Zahir Khan, SHO of Sector 39 police station, said the Marigold school bus was moving towards Mahamaya flyover and Pragya and Navita’s auto was behind it. “A chartered bus carrying students of Amity International School was behind the auto. The driver of the Marigold school bus suddenly applied the brakes. The chartered bus driver could not brake in time and drove right into the auto, which got crushed between the two buses,” Khan said.
Pragya, Navita and Vinod were extracted from the mangled auto by a police team and taken to Kailash hospital. V B Joshi, spokesperson for Kailash hospital, said Pragya had received critical head injuries and had died by the time she was brought. “Navita is in ICU.The next 24 hours are critical,” he said.
HCL said Pragya and Navita were working as trainee engineers. “The company is deeply saddened,”.
Savita Mehta, vice-president (communication) of Amity Group, said parents had engaged the chartered bus to ferry children to school. “The bus was not directly associated with the school management,” she said. V K Sharda, principal of Marigold Public School, said, “The bus driver applied the brakes because traffic ahead was slow. A bus going in the same direction rammed the auto and then our bus.”
Anil Kumar, owner of Hind Travels that owns the chartered bus carrying Amity students, said he was cooperating with the police investigation. “We came to know Manoj was driving rashly . We have removed him from the job and asked him to appear before police for investigation,” he said.
HCL Technologies Ltd is quoting at Rs 1336.5, down 1.78% on the day as on 13:19 IST on the NSE. Read more
